Little helping things.

[galgat]

I thought a thread with little help things might be nice, as we all figure out the game.

 

1. You all probably found this right away. the numbers pad is a hot key for spells armor what ever. ( I did not )

 

place spell or weapon or apparel in favorite, and the select them from the favorite menu and hit the number pad key you wish it to be attached too.

 

2. what is kool is you can double hit the hot key for a spell, or weapon you have 2 of, and dual wield them.

 

[littleman]

Helping things:

 

I'm playing on expert difficulty atm, and still lower level around 15.

I noticed with magic when using the first level elemental spells, Tap your magic dont hold it down( even though it looks awesome) you do more damage.

 

Fire Rune Rips apart Vampires. (I was being chased by five at once and took them all down with one fire rune,)

 

Summoning a the elemental Attronachs(spl) in the presence of a Vigil of Stendar seems to aggro them.

 

 

 

I found switching to third person makes fighting trolls with a two handed weapon easier.

 

Certain mobs can one hit you if they power attack correctly ( don't just stand there and take it. )

 

Bow fighting is actually useful ( with a smithed bow upgraded arrows and a poison you may not kill your strong target with one blow in sneak but you;ll soften him up. ( sneaking has a perk to increase the damage of the bow in sneak mode.

 

Your boots weight will determine your speed. ( I wore dwarven boots and moved really slow removed em for steel and moved back to a faster pace. )

 

If I find anything else that helped in in my play through ill tell ya ( though no spoilers)

 

[sora3]

There are a few hints I can give to most people here.

 

If you have any two handed weapons such as swords and the like, you can swing just a little earlier to catch the enemy off guard. I find that swinging just before they connect with their weapon makes them stagger. I did that a lot with when I was surrounded in front and took out 2 bandits with ease before moving onto the rest.

 

Never let yourself get surrounded behind. This is a no-brainer but it does happen in the heat of the moment. I got taken out by 3 bandits because I was a bit careless in protecting my arse. So keep an eye or have a follower in case.

 

If you have any scrolls, sell them. You're not going to be able to effectively use them in had-to-hand combat. I tried and the scroll was useless as I was dead before I could cast the bloody thing. If you're a mage then you might want to keep them.

 

Always upgrade your stuff. If you're hoarding 16 Iron Ore, smelt them and get better weapons/armour in the blacksmith. Seriously, upgrading arms and armour not only benefits you if you're wearing it but also sells better when it comes to bandit gear. I managed to rack up nearly 1400 septims just by upgrading everything with the leather I had accrued at this point. Fur and Hide armour are easy gold given how leather is pretty much plentiful if you hunt a lot of wolves/deers.

 

Sell anything that you cannot move or merge. This is especially true with food as you can sell off all the rest of the food you cannot merge. In the same vein, keep anything that you can merge such as any gems (garnets, emeralds, diamonds etc) and soul gems. If you are lucky to have the Absorb Soul spell early on, buying just 2 grand soul gems is enough for the rest of the game.

[Mud]

You can pickpocket even when Detected. It just reduces your chance of success.

 

Don't try to melee dragons if your health is below half. They can do kill sequences.

 

When using FUS RO DAH, make sure it doesn't catch any friendly NPCs in the blast. It does damage when fully powered so it counts as assault.

 

When sneaking, you seem to suddenly move faster if you unsheath your weapon while moving. This lasts until you stop moving.

[chukkake]

If you have a follower, you may want to manually set off the deadlier traps, because they're absolutely horrible at avoiding them. RIP Lydia.

 

It's fairly well known to anyone who's played a Bethesda game before, but save often. Can't count the number of rages I could've prevented by saving more frequently. Also, don't rely on autosave too much. I forgot that the current character's autosave overwrites the autosaves from the character you were playing previously. ~.~

 

Don't be afraid to leave and come back later if you're overmatched. I've found ruins that wrecked me early on to be much easier later, when I had better gear and more potions.

[omegau]

Always bring companions to ruins you haven't been too. If you end up against a dragon priest, you're toast on your own, but their masks are well worth the fight. They have powerful enchantments, and I still haven't found a helm with a better armor rating.

 

The higher ranking zombie-like things in ruins can sometimes use the disarm shout. Block when they use to it avoid dropping your weapon.

 

Shield bash staggers EVERYTHING. Including dragons.

[pandabear]

Helping things:

 

I'm playing on expert difficulty atm' date=' and still lower level around 15.

I noticed with magic when using the first level elemental spells, Tap your magic dont hold it down( even though it looks awesome) you do more damage.

[/quote']

 

I noticed this too; I play a mage, and when my mana is low, I switch to tier one spells, and just tap them constantly and I seem to be doing a lot of damage that way.

 

If you have a follower' date=' you may want to manually set off the deadlier traps, because they're absolutely horrible at avoiding them. RIP Lydia.

[/quote']

 

Yeah, I've had her stuck on an endless loop in the traps that fling a huge spikey wall of death at you... But if I activate it, back up, then sprint forward, she usually makes it past.

 

Anyways, I have a tip of my own, kinda; If you're fighting a ton of people at once, say, 10 guards, one way to kill them all slowly is to get them to a narrow place then shout "Marked for death" at them. Then just run around with double tier one healing spells and heal up as neccessary until they die. Kinda specific maybe, but it's one way to go about it.

 

And as said before, never underestimate the bow, it can be a very useful tool to bring along/conjure.

 

If you're playing a mage, the dual cast stagger perk for Destruction is very useful I find. You can use dual cast tier two spells to slowly kill just about anything.

[Guest Donkey]

Galgat thanks for the tips. this is very handy since i was constantly using the menu to switch, was annoyed there was no number key to hotkeying the spells and weapons etc..

 

 

for mages this is only work around, you probably already noticed magic works totally different when leveling, if you have a spell called muffles use it level up illusion skill quickly.

 

Conjuration and restoration works differently, since you need to be injured before restoration will work, and when you summon a creature it will not count as experience yet, till start fighting something.

 

So here is tripple combo you can use to level both restoration and conjuration at the same time, but you need 3 spells 2 of witch is already in your possession 1 you have to buy like summon sword.

 

Make sure to do this when there is no one around, so they will get the kill instead of you..

 

Now what you can do, use the summon familiar for left hand and summon a sword for right hand. now use your right to attack the familiar a few times don't kill it yet, wait till his you a few times don't let it kill you, now kill the familiar use a restoration spell and both conjuration and restoration will taken a boost, now repeat what you did. and watch you level these out quickly..

 

 

 

[DocClox]

 

for mages this is only work around' date=' you probably already noticed magic works totally different when leveling, if you have a spell called muffles use it level up illusion skill quickly.

 

 

[/quote']

 

And on a related note...

 

 

 

Don't try using clairvoyance to train illusion - it didn't make the slightest difference when I tried it.

 

 

[chukkake]

Not sure why, but turning off the 360 controller option gave me both an FPS boost and made mouse more responsive during menus.

 

For smithing, iron daggers are probably the way to go to level it. Every smith npc I've come across has all the mats needed to make quite a few.

[ronttu]

Galgat thanks for the tips. this is very handy since i was constantly using the menu to switch' date=' was annoyed there was no number key to hotkeying the spells and weapons etc..

[/quote']

 

I need to point out that this was in the manual (at least the steam pdf version), so it shouldn't be a surprise.

[galgat]

Galgat thanks for the tips. this is very handy since i was constantly using the menu to switch' date=' was annoyed there was no number key to hotkeying the spells and weapons etc..

[/quote']

 

I need to point out that this was in the manual (at least the steam pdf version), so it shouldn't be a surprise.

 

I just get a game, and never read the doc, unless I have too..LOL, and i did not get the steam version I bought the retail, at wally world $60.00.

And there was very little doc in it. And mine has no DRM.

 

I just thought we could help each other out as we explore the game.

[gregathit]

RTFM?!?!?! not on your life!!! Doing so is against all that is holy and just!!!

 

On a serious note....thanks some great tips shared here!

[ogre3000]

My advices...if you want to do a hybrid go melee first then switch to spells i recommend every level you take a break to visit the college for some spell training...each level=5 points for training and train till 50 think the prices after 50 are way too big....also disenchanting levels enchanting fast so keep those trashy enchanted robes you find...theyre very usefull

Use trainers for low level skills...from what i ve noticed the higher the skill the more experience for leveling it gives when it goes up a point or 2...a point into an adept skill(50+) is worth around 2-3 points of a novice/apprentice spell(around 25)...level wise and moneywise if you train it at a trainer

[Warrunner]

If you become master of the Thieves Guild, when you run into random highwaymen they'll run up to you and give you anywhere from 100-1000 gold as your cut of their take of the last major hit they did. Note: Random spawned on the road thieves that come up to you and demand your money or you life before then, NOT the random Bandits in ruins and caves and so on.

[Mashi]

If you're looking for access to easy ores for your own smithing, especially rare ores like ebony, become friendly with the orc's. Most have mines at their encampments.

 

 

 

Image attached: Prolly the best ebony mine I've found so far, just south-east of windhelm. 52 Ebony ore.

 

 

 

Edit: Going to keep updating this post here as "best of" mining locations for ores. If you have one you want added, just PM me and I'll stick it here.

 

Gold ore, Mined 56 gold ore one go. Location: Just east of Maraketh, may be overrun with forsworn.

 

 

 

Orichalcum

 

 

 

 

extra stuff:

 

Special mining pick at the very tip top of throat of the world, increasing smithing skill and mining.

 

[Evilokami]

Ill give my 2 cents.

 

Buy a house ASAP so you can store all your crafing stuff.

 

Its nice not having to carry an extra 100+lbs in stuff your not even using.

 

also companions are useless IMO. They get in your way tons. You will kill them. they dont have a sneak level so if your a master and trying to sneak up to someone they will give you away.

 

The only thing they are good for is portable storage and aggro.

 

[Mud]

Companions are very useful for characters that don't sneak through every dungeon. Particularly the ones that come with magic, such as the one you get for restoring Azura's Star.

 

And if you're anything like me and can't seem to keep your carried weight below 300, their storage capabilities are a godsend. :l They're especially useful for carting around those oh-so-heavy dragon remains.

 

They do, however, run into every single trap in every dungeon, and then some, but it seems like they can't be killed by traps, anyway.

 

 

 

Also, a tip regarding companions: Barbas, the dog companion you get during the Clavicus Vile quest. If you don't complete the quest you can use him for as long as you want. He's completely invincible (doesn't even seem to have a health bar) and makes for excellent distractions for a non-stealth character. But only for non-stealth. He is as un-sneaky as a character can get and will give away your position every single time. He also tends to have weird positioning and will constantly push you around. If you don't mind the pushing he's very useful for mage and warrior characters.

[Mud]

Just discovered something else interesting. Those skill books that grant you a skill point when read? Wouldn't you like to be able to pick it up and read it later, when your skill is at, say, 95, instead of 25? But activating the book automatically reads it!

 

Just command a companion to read it. He'll pick it up and you can fish it out of his inventory at your leisure.

[Irishredneck]

To virtually destroy anything in the game in melee..

 

Go with Orc berzerk rage, followed by Werewolf. Hit left/right/left/right mouse buttons continuously as fast as you can. 4 Dragon priests and a Blood dragon fell in less than 30 sec's and I didn't loose but about 1/4 health. It was a real slaughter!

 

I love this game.

[galgat]

1. I guess there are many ways to bring illusion up, but I used water breathing next to water. I would cast it and jump in, then get back out cast it again and jump in the water again. I leveled almost every time up to level 50.

 

Then it started to slow down.

 

2. Also if your making lots of money.. check every blacksmith you see for ingots. They seem to randomly have different stock all the time. I finally have my smithing, to 100. and all the Smithing perks topped out.

 

Weapons I make are really good now.

 

3. Try to find the potions that improve enchanting. I wish I could find that recipe, They really help.

 

4. Carry all your rings out of dungeons ( there very light Wt.) for latter bringing up your Enchanting.. just enchant them with what ever.

 

5. If you can do the mage guild main story first. Once you have Archmage you get a nice pad with potion, and enchanting stall.

 

and there are lots of barrels there to keep your things sorted out.

 

6. I love the home in Solitude, but it have hardly any storage things close to the Potions and Enchanting benches, which makes it hard to sort out all the different items you make.

When the editor comes out that is one of the first things i will add to my game is several little boxes next to each of those Benches to sort things out.

[omegau]

Dunno if anyone's tried using wards to fend off dragon breath yet (Started a mage a few days ago) but as long as you get it up before the breath hits, it'll save your ass.

 

The blade of Woe doesn't need any materials to be upgraded. (for those who haven't tried that yet)

 

The dragon priest mask from the one you get the staff of magnus from in combination with the arch-mage robes will let you heal during dragon breath attacks and regen your magika before you even notice it's gone.

[afro-herbalist]

If you have a follower' date=' you may want to manually set off the deadlier traps, because they're absolutely horrible at avoiding them. RIP Lydia.

[/quote']

 

Shamefully I cant think of anything helpful to add lol, but I've noticed Lydia step DIRECTLY over a pressure plate before, yet nothing happened. I was even like "NO, WTF are you doing, avoid it you idiot, like I did", but she was fine, she obviously weighs less than a couple grams.

 

As for trip-wires, I dont know yet! Oh yea, ONE thing! I made the mistake of pushing a small rock as far as I could, up a slope, well, it rolled back, and killed Lydia, yet didn't harm me at all... Seriously, a SMALL ROCK.

 

 

[Mud]

Rocks seem to be weird. Triggered a rock trap, then aggroed a Chaurus after the rocks had settled. The Chaurus proceeded to run at me, run into the rocks, and apparently kill itself on them. My companion then followed me through the rocks and every time he ran into one of them he got wounded.

[Eyrika]

Rocks seem to be weird. Triggered a rock trap' date=' then aggroed a Chaurus after the rocks had settled. The Chaurus proceeded to run at me, run into the rocks, and apparently kill itself on them. My companion then followed me through the rocks and every time he ran into one of them he got wounded.

[/quote']

 

Lmao! That's happened to me, too, and my boyfriend. His horse kept dying when he ran past some rocks